Steam Summer Sale

It has begun! If your a PC gamer you probably have already seen the sale or read about it on every single other website that is even the slightest bit gaming related, but if you haven't seen it let me show off what the sales are for day 1 and give a few recommendations. Unlike last year, this sale is only a sale, there are no achievements to earn for free games or coupons, but they haven't added badges. Badges seem to be the same thing as achievements, but aren't tied to a specific game. I know the way they did it last year was a bit odd, especially with most people not earning a single game and ending up with mostly just crap coupons, but I'm sad to see them not doing anything as interesting as last year.

Just a bit of information before we get onto the sales. The sale will run from July 12th until July 22nd. The Steam Summer Sale consists of daily deals, publisher deals, community choice deals and regular deals. The daily deals are the best sales Steam has to offer and they make any game 50-75% off, even new games. The publisher deals will be on sale the whole ten days and they offer entire collections of games for 50% off or more. The community choice deals change every eight hours and they let you the Steam Community vote for one game to go on sale, for 60-75% off, every eight hours. For this first eight hours it is between The Witcher 2, Saints Row The Third and Batman: Arkham City. Now onto the sales.

The Daily Deals, seen above, are:
Total War Shogun 2 Franchise Deal
Total War: Shogun 2 $7.49 (75% off)
Total War: Shogun 2 - Fall of the Samurai $14.99 (50% off)
Total War: Shogun 2 - Rise of the Samurai $2.49 (75% off)
Various DLC 40% off as well

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 $29.99 (50% off)

Portal 2 Franchise Deal
Portal 2 $4.99 (75% off)
Portal 2 Two Pack $8.74 (75% off)
Portal Bundle $6.24 (75% off)
Portal 2 - The Final Hours $0.99 (50% off)

Legend of Grimrock $5.99 (60% off)

Terraria $2.49 (75% off)

Ridge Racer Unbounded $24.99 (50% off)

Might & Magic Heroes VI Franchise Deal
Might & Magic Heroes VI $24.99 (50% off)
Might & Magic Heroes VI - Deluxe $27.49 (50% off)

Crusader Kings II Franchise Deal
Crusader Kings II $9.99 (75% off) 
Crusader Kings II Collection (most DLC) $29.99 (40% off) *DO NOT BUY*
All DLC $11.01 (40-75% off)

If you want Crusader Kings 2, buy all of the DLC and then the base Crusader Kings II game. Together that is $21.01, while the collection pack is $29.99 and includes fewer DLC.

Indie Bundle I 
$9.99 for all five (75% off) 
Prices below are individual sale prices
Anomaly: Warzone Earth $4.99 (50% off) 
Cave Story+ $5.99 (40% off)
Lone Survivor $6.49 (35% off)
The Baconing $14.99 (0% off)
Edge $3.99 (50% off)


Pack Deals
There are too many of these to list, so I won't list what is in each one of the big packs


Nordic Hit Collection $49.99 (59% off of $122.27)
-Gothic Series, Aquanox Series, Painkiller Series and more.

Bethesda Collection $49.99 (72% off of $179.87)
Small list: Skryim, Brink (+DLC), Fallout: New Vegas (+DLC) and Hunted: The Demon Forge.

Cyan Complete Pack $14.99 (50% off of $29.99)
-Myst series, URU: Complete Chronicles and a few others.

Sega Hit Collection $49.99 (88% off of $424.57)
-Renegade Ops, all Total War games after Rome: Total War, tons of Sega classics and more.

Strategy First Collection $49.99 (50% off of $99.99)
-Flatout series, Disciple II, Jagged Alliance 2, Sacred and so many more.

Ubisoft Collection $49.99 (50% off of $99.99)
Assassin's Creed Revelations, From Dust, Rayman Origins and several others.

Railworks 3 Collection $49.99 *Their percentage off is wrong on this one.
-Just the base game and tons of DLC.

Valve Complete Pack $49.99 (50% off of $99.99)
-Portal 2, Half Life 1 and 2, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Counter Strike and a few others.

Popcap Complete Pack $49.99 (50% off of $99.99)
-Bejeweled games, Plants Vs. Zombies, Zuma's Revenge and many others.

Super iD Software Pack $49.99 (50% off of $99.99)
-Doom series, Heretic, Hexen, Quake series, Rage and several others.

Square Enix Hit Collection $49.99 *Their percentage is wrong again
-Tomb Raider series, Thief series, Just Cause 2, Hitman series and the Deus Ex series. 


Telltale Games Collection $49.99 (62% off)
-The Walking Dead, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Tales of Monkey Island Complete Pack and Puzzle Agent 1 & 2.

Paradox Collection $49.99 (82% off)
-Crusader Kings II, Mount & Blade series, Magicka, Europa Universalis III and more.

1C Collection $49.99 (85% off)
-King's Bounty, Men of War series, Necrovision, Theatre of War 3, Necrovision and a few others.

Rockstar Hit Collection $49.99 (58% off)
-L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3, GTA IV and GTA: Episodes from Liberty City.

THQ Collection $49.99 (84% off)
-Company of Heroes, STALKER, Titan Quest, Saints Row, Space Marine and many others. 


Activision Hits Collections $49.99 (71% off)
-Call of Duty 1 & 2, Prototype 1, Vampire the Masquerade, Transformers: War for Cyberton, Gun, Singularity and Timeshift. 


Star Wars Collection $49.99 (50% off)
-Jedi Knight 1 & 2, Battlefront II, Republic Commando, Knights of the Old Republic 1 and many others. 


2K Collection $49.99 (77% off)
-Bioshock 2, Borderlands, Civilization V, Spec Ops: The Line, Duke Nukem Forever, Mafia II and The Darkness II. 


MumboJumbo Collection $34.99 (56% off) 
-Luxor series, Samantha Swift series, Midnight Mysteries series and several others. 


Kalypso Collection $49.99 (50% off)
-Disciples III, Dungeons, Jagged Alliance: BIA, Skydrift, Tropico 3 & 4 and a few other games. 


That is it for all of the big packs. All of those will be staying the same throughout the sale, same with the random little sales for 10-25% on various games, but if you want to get something big, like Skyrim or Batman, you should probably wait to see if it comes onto one of the daily deals for 50-75% off. 


*Recommendations:
-There isn't a whole lot exciting today, but if you are a fan of interesting and enjoyable indie games check out the Indie Bundle 1 for $10. Anomaly: Warzone Earth does a really interesting take on tower defense and Lone Survivor is a really impressive horror game. If you've never picked up Total War: Shogun 2 and you like real time strategy games, then this deal is pretty great. The expansion, Fall of the Samurai, is actually pretty different than the original game and is one of the better expansions I've ever played. Lastly, in one hour we will see if The Witcher 2 or Batman: Arkham City wins the community vote and those are both rich, lengthy and wonderful games. 


Thanks for checking all of this out and the Daily Deals will only be relevant for today, July 12th.
Main Sale Page: http://store.steampowered.com/


-Written by Sean Cargle